True Detective: Who Is Mike Ardoin?

This post contains frank discussion of Season 3, Episode 6 of True Detective titled “Hunters in the Dark.” Proceed with care.

The latest episode of True Detective was bursting with important information including an out-of-left-field revelation about Tom Purcell’s (Scoot McNairy) sexuality and the confirmation of a long-held fan theory that, yes, it was probably the Hoyt family that took Julie Purcell back in 1980. For more info on why they would, you can go here. But blink and you might miss one of the most important clues dropped in the episode. When Amelia (Carmen Ejogo) goes to interview one of Julie’s friends—a teenage runaway named Shelly (Lindsay Musil)—the girl briefly looks out the window of the nun-run home she’s staying in to see a landscaper working by a truck with the name ARDOIN emblazoned on the door. He can also be seen for a split second in an earlier shot.

If we learned anything from True Detective Season 1 it’s that we should always pay close attention to cameos from gardeners. Plus, we’ve heard the name Ardoin on the show before. It belongs to Julie’s childhood friend, Mike. We saw him waving at the Purcell kids in the first 10 minutes of Episode 1.

More memorably, the kid was interrogated by Amelia, Roland (Stephen Dorff), and Wayne (Mahershala Ali) in Episode 2. Mike Ardoin was the one who had the clue about the two adults dressed as ghosts on Halloween who may have given Julie those corn husk dolls. He also dressed as Luke Skywalker for Halloween—which may be irrelevant but is cute enough to mention.

In the 1980 timeline, Mike Ardoin is played by young Arkansas nativeCorbin Pitts. In the 1990 timeline, he’s played by Nathan Wetherington. It should be noted that while IMDb listings are hardly accurate, both Wetherington and Musil who plays Shelly are listed as appearing again in the series finale. There’s another intriguing detail listed in the finale on IMDb, but we’ll save that for the end of this article.

It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where Mike “rescues” or hides teenage Julie when she doesn’t want the cops or anyone else to find her. The implication in the 1980 timeline was that Mike had a little romantic crush on Julie when they were both kids. Maybe she reached out to him because she needed help or, perhaps, he just happened to be trimming the hedges around the very shelter Julie happened to be staying in. In other words, it’s very possible Julie’s new home is with Mike.

There are some fun linguistic clues to back this up. As some fans have pointed out, True Detective Season 3 has had a lot of fun with Latin/Germanic last names that give little hints about the character. For example, Amelia’s maiden name, Reardon, means “royal bard” or “storyteller.” Tom and Lucy’s last name, Purcell, means “swineherd” which pairs with their lowly and debased stature. Hoyt means someone who lives high or on a hill—very appropriate for the shadowy billionaire who runs Arkansas. Ardoin? Well, that means “dwelling-house” or home. Perhaps we’ve found Julie after all.

This kind of solution is very reminiscent of True Detective Season 2 revelation that orphaned siblings Laura and Leonard grew up to be the show’s killers hiding in plain sight as minor side characters. That season planted a seed in the first few episodes with just this one stolen look.

So, anyway, 1990 Julie is probably hiding out with Mike. But is that the end of the speculation? Not by a long shot. While the rest doesn’t precisely constitute a spoiler, it feels worth tucking it behind a warning to make sure you really want to know.

O.K., so not only are Mike and Shelly listen on IMDb as appearing in the Season 3 finale, but a character named “Lucy Ardoin” is also listed there played by cute-as-a-button young, blonde actress Ivy Dubreuil. Lucy is, of course, Julie’s mother’s name. Could this be Mike and Julie’s kid?

Furthermore, is it at all possible that the Shelly we meet in Episode 6 is actually Julie herself? It’s true Shelly’s looks don’t line up with the blurry snapshot of Julie on the Walgreens security footage. She also has an odd kind of birthmark or similar marking on her face. Still, I’m not willing to rule it out. This would be a veryNic Pizzolatto move. When describing Julie’s general confusion and fondness for alternative names, Shelly says: “I think she didn’t know who she was. I think she pretended.” Could she be pretending still?

Vanity Fair writers Richard Lawson and Joanna Robinson break down all the twists and turns of the latest episode on the podcast Still Watching: True Detective which you can subscribe to here.